Is Workplace Harassment Hazardous to Your Health?

We examined cross-sectional and lagged effects of sexual harassment (SH) and generalized workplace harassment (GWH) on incidence of self-reported illness, injury, or assault in a sample of over 1,500 university employees. SH and GWH, but not other job stressors, were related to increased odds of illness, injury, or assault. This was true when SH, GWH, and illness, injury, or assault were measured at the same time point, as well as when SH and GWH were measured in year prior to illness, injury, or assault.The data presented here are part of an ongoing longitudinal study of workplace harassment conducted at the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Illinois at Chicago. This research was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (grants AA09989 and AA13332). Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, April 2004, Chicago, Illinois. The data were collected by the Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.     

The effects of outcome expectations and satisfaction on weight loss and maintenance: correlational and experimental analyses--a randomized trial.

This study examines the hypothesis that highly favorable outcome expectations promote weight loss and hinder weight maintenance. To investigate the effects of outcome expectations and satisfaction with treatment outcomes on weight loss, 349 adults were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 weight loss programs that emphasize either (a) an "optimistic" message, focusing exclusively on the positive aspects of weight loss, or (b) a "balanced" message, giving equal time to positive and negative aspects of weight loss. Participants changed their weight loss cognitions in response to the intervention, but there was no significant difference between the intervention treatment groups in short-term or long-term (18-month) weight loss. Independent of treatment message, positive outcome expectations and satisfaction were both associated with weight loss.     

Perceptions concerning college student suicide: data from four universities

The issue of suicide, including prevention, intervention, and postvention, continues to be a problem on college campuses. For this study, data concerning a variety of issues related to college student suicide were collected from 1,865 students at four different universities. Incidence, risk factors, and potential solutions are described, as well as implications for mental health professionals in university settings.     

Progress and innovation: personality disorders and the vanguard of psychopathology research

Important progress in our understanding of the natural course of personality disorders (PDs) is documented in the articles for this special section. This progress could set the stage for ideas developed in the study of PDs to play a central role in research on psychopathology more broadly conceived. The Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study (Skodol et al., this issue), the Children in the Community Study (Cohen, Crawford, Johnson, & Kasen, this issue), and the McLean Study of Adult Development (Zanarini, Frankenburg, Hennen, Reich, & Silk, this issue) reveal the importance of personality in understanding psychopathology, and point toward a dimensional approach to conceptualizing psychopathology that could also frame categorical clinical decision making processes.     

Selective Mutism in Children: Comparison to Youths With and Without Anxiety Disorders

Fifteen children with selective mutism (SM), 15 children with anxiety disorders (AD) without selective mutism, and 15 children without anxiety disorders or selective mutism (CN) were compared to examine the relationship between selective mutism and anxiety. Data were collected from children (age 4–10 years), parents, teachers, and clinicians. Results indicated that children with SM closely resemble children with AD. All children with SM received a diagnosis of social anxiety disorder and 53% received a diagnosis for an additional anxiety disorder. In addition, the SM and AD groups differed substantially from controls with respect to parent- and teacher-rated internalizing behavior problems. No differences among the groups were found with respect to parent-and teacher-reported externalizing behavior problems. The results are consistent with prior research emphasizing the association between selective mutism and anxiety disorders, and suggest that selective mutism may be conceptualized, assessed, and treated as an anxiety-related problem.     

Factor structure and validity of the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication

Examination of the available literature regarding the development of the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA) reveals 2 theoretical factor structures on which the MacCAT-CA was based: one in which 3 lower-order constructs are proposed (understanding, reasoning, appreciation) and one in which 2 higher-order constructs are proposed (competence to assist counsel and decisional competence). Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted with the MacCAT-CA's original normative sample (N = 729) to test both the relative fit of these 2 theoretical factor structures and models that combine the 2 factor structures. Analyses were also completed to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of the MacCAT-CA. Results are discussed in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of the nomothetic nature of the MacCAT-CA.     

Parent and Adolescent Responses to PovertyRelated Stress: Tests of Mediated and Moderated Coping Models

We tested several models of the associations among economic strain, life stress, coping, involuntary stress responses, and psychological symptoms in a sample of 57 parent-adolescent dyads from rural, lower-income families. Economic strain and life stress predicted symptoms for both parents and adolescents. Stressor-symptom specificity was found for parents, such that economic strain uniquely predicted depression, whereas negative life events predicted hostility. Involuntary stress responses were associated with higher levels of symptoms for both parents and the adolescent children. Secondary control coping was associated with fewer symptoms for both parents and adolescents. Results support a mediational role of coping and responses to stress during adolescence, with a shift to moderational status in adulthood. Implications of these results are discussed with regard to developmental coping theory and potential interventions with at-risk families.     

Basic processes in reading: Is visual word recognition obligatory?

Visual word recognition is commonly argued to be automatic in the sense that it is obligatory and ballistic. The present experiments combined Stroop and visual search paradigms to provide a novel test of this claim. An array of three, five, or seven words including one colored target (a word in Experiments 1 and 2, a bar in Experiment 3) was presented to participants. An irrelevant color word also appeared in the display and was either integrated with or separated from the colored target. The participants classified the color of the single colored item in Experiments 1 and 3 and determined whether a target color was present or absent in Experiment 2. A Stroop effect was observed in Experiment 1 when the color word and the color target were integral, but not when the color word and the color target were separated. No Stroop effect was observed in Experiment 2. Visual word recognition is contingent on both the distribution of spatial attention and task demands.     

Assessment of executive function in preschool-aged children

Assessment of the overarching self-regulatory mechanisms, or executive functions, in any age group is challenging, in part due to the complexity of this domain, in part due to their dynamic essence, and in part due to the inextricable links between these central processes and the associated domain-specific processes, such as language, motor function, and attention, over which they preside. While much progress has been made in clinical assessment approaches for measuring executive functions in adults and to some extent in adolescents and school-aged children, the toolkit for the preschool evaluator remains sparse. The past decade, however, has seen a substantial increase in attention to executive functions in very young children from a developmental neuropsychological perspective. With this has come a necessity for better, more specific, and more internally valid performance measures, many of which are now described in the experimental literature. Few such tasks, however, have adequately demonstrated psychometric properties for clinical application. We present two performance tasks designed to tap selective aspects of executive function in preschoolers that are emerging from the experimental laboratory and hold promise of appropriate reliability and validity for the clinical laboratory. Performance tests alone, however, are insufficient to develop a comprehensive picture of a child's executive functioning. Thus, we present a rating scale of preschoolers' executive function in the everyday context, and advocate a model of executive function assessment that incorporates both controlled performance tasks that target specific aspects of executive function and parent/teacher ratings that target more global aspects of self-regulation in the everyday context.